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Topic: TOT pain (Read 6729 times)

Getting an internet connection in the bushes of Isaan is a real problem. After years of involuntary abstinence I had finally managed to get connected via GPRS by AIS (One-2-call) over a mobile phone, then advancing to EDGE, then improving by moving to DTAC, further moving on to CDMA by CAT, until finally two months ago we got ADSL by TOT in this village. Though there's nothing to notice of the promised 4 - 6 Mbits/sec still 2.5 Mbits/sec do come in in the nighttime and morning. So I can download movies from TV and at times listen to live radio broadcast.

Last Friday technicians of TOT were seen working on the cables in the neighboring village my line leads through. Whether they set up a new connection for somebody or fixed a defect doesn't matter. Fact is that my line doesn't work anymore since then. The phone is dead and the internet cannot connect, shows "ADSL error". So I called their customer support line 1100 over our second TOT phone line, which isn't connected to internet. Upon pressing 9 you get forwarded to a lady speaking fair English. I explained her the problem, and she confirmed having understood. She promised to forward my complaint to the technicians. But when those would get to fix it again she couldn't say.

When this morning still nothing did work I called again. This time the lady told me there were no problem with my line, meaning the line I called her over. So I slowly repeated the number I was referring to in thai and let her repeat it. I heard her typing something into a keyboard. then she told me there had no complaint been filed about that yet. But she would forward my complaint to the technicians now.

When nothing had happened until lunch my wife's nephew tried his luck to explain them the problem. No response to the complaint of the dead phone line, but they asked him which modem had been connected, as if it did matter which modem did not get any juice from the line.

I wonder, whether I'll be able to manage this problem without having to storm into their supervisor's office?

dirtydog

Actually my best modem blew up yesterday, had it for years, does 4 computers and cost like 5,000baht, didn't have wireless in them days in Pattaya, anyway a big transformer blew in the soi and took it out luckily I have a few ordinary single port modems, what I did notice is the connection is a lot better with the new modems, I did start to think it maybe new technology or something, odds are its just the lan connections are a nice shiny bright copper color.

Unusual for them to blame it on your modem, normally they will just tell you its your computer Probably have too many households with more than one pc these days even in deepest darkest Korat

Problem is the line itself; the technicians must have damaged my cable by accident. but that is exactly the problem. If it were something that could have gone wrong in my house or by my doing, they'd be the heroes to help and fix it. But fixing again what they had broken, even if it was by accident only, is another thing. That would mean admitting that they broke it in the first place. Loss of face, the most terrible thing that can happen to anybody in Thailand!

A couple of phone calls later I got at least to the point to have them acknowledge having received a complaint already, even remembering my name, telling they had forwarded the complaint to the technicians already. When I asked how long it might take for the technicians to do something about it, one day, one month, one year, two years, I was stopped after two years and assured it wouldn't take that long. Let's hope they do it a lot earlier.

Mitraparp Monkey

I've heard of that more than once before as a scam: When the technician comes he'll tell you that both your phone and modem are not ok. He offers to get new working ones for you, but you gotta pay cash in advance. and after he connected them they'll miraculously work to your surprise. And then the biggest surprise to you (and him, if you make him stay for that) will be that your old ones will work as well again or still, if you take the new ones he got for you off again and reconnect the old ones. But of course he just cannot take back the new ones he bought for your cash, or maybe at a reduced price like 50% only.

About an hour after I had called their Contact Center at 1100 again this morning for the daily nagging, and they'd told me again that they still have to tell the technician to check, actually two guys came. The younger had a look from afar at my six-weeks-old modem and declared it broken. I asked him to write his diagnosis on a sheet of paper and sign with his and his company's name (Thepthani in Choho) because I still have warranty on that modem and the company I bought it from (Ratsima IT) wanted to know who said it were broken. His face turning unhappy he declined. Now he started looking at the plug into the modem, then at the wall socket. He asked how the cable was laid in the wall etc., walking around making a helpless face.

Now I got my camera and took pictures of them while they "tried to approach the problem". The younger guy about every 10 minutes went far away from the house to make a call on his mobile phone, I suppose he didn't want me to listen to, since the signals for AIS and DTAC are both excellent in or near the house. Next he tried to tell me it could only be the cable to my house that is laid in a 60 m long underground double PVC pipe buried 1 m deep under the garden. It appeared to me like he was playing for time. Finally the older guy moved in, also checked the signal in the house, making a very serious face like it could never be repaired again. That's when I began to lose patience telling them frankly to just check the cable in front of my house before telling me to tear down my house or dig up my garden. If it were a big problem to fix this I could only cancel the contract and move to one of the wireless alternatives. Another phone call and they actually went to the street in front of my house, handling with the cables or at least acting like. One more phone call and three minutes later it all worked again. They told my wife then the contact there had been oxidized. Like that couldn't have been where to look first, establishing, whether the problem was in my cable system or theirs. Still, a perfectly working line doesn't go dead from one moment to the next when cables oxidize...

Since two days my TOT connection is hardly usable again. If it keeps working long enough for a speedtest, I get maybe a ittle over 1 Mb. So I called their service center again this morning. The first standard question was for the modem I'm using. Then the lady promised again to forward my complaint to the technicians. She also promised to tell them to check the line before the house first, before they recommend again to tear down the house and dig up the garden to get to the cables laid in pipes in the wall and under the garden.

I hope it doesnt 'take days again and they send qualified guys this time, not guys just wasting my time until I can convince them to look systematically from their system towards mine instead of putting the cart before the horse again.

Having learned from my last experience that a daily nagging call to their service center is necessary for them to realize that the customer is in need of having things repaired in the near future I've just called them again. This time it was heavy distortion noise to be heard on my part, hopefully on the lady's part too. Anyway, surprisingly this time she knew that I had already filed a complaint yesterday, even repeating what I had told her yesterday what is wrong. Maybe I'm not the only one with that problem. She said she'd forwarded my complaint to the technician already. I hope the technician also did already get it, so I don't have to call again tomorrow.

Just had "a technician" call me on my mobile, telling me "in very cheerful manner" that the internet works fine. He didn't want to accept that it doesn't. Then I tried to call 1100 again on that landline, but couldn't get through, the sound badly distorted like before. Measuring the speed I got between 2.0 and 2.4 now, far below the 9 Mb I'm charged. Guess I have to keep nagging the service center. Little problem though: their line seem busy about all the time. My conclusion: Too many people having problems!

Finally I got through to a guy who seemed to understand the problem. He said they had already experience with the symptom that a connection actually gets slower and keeps dropping of and resetting when upgraded to a higher speed: the line to my house would not support the speed of 9 Mb as they had switched my connection to. They would downgrade it again now. I wonder what happens now? Most I wonder why it worked for 6 months fairly decently and only started showing that symptom now?

uploading on here last 2 days has been very slow.I do not think its my end as its same using another computer.Ive noticed the connection drops after time,then reboot the modem back it comes.they downgraded me,the bill says 2 mgb up to 3 mgb 390bht

Yesterday our TOT bill came. Of course they kept charging what doesn't work still. So I called 1100 again. A lady answered and told me I would have to contact the local TOT-office. She hung up after I asked for her supervisor. Called again a little later and got to a polite man. He promised to send the technician by. A little later my internet dropped off completely for a while. Obviously they were tinkering with my connection. Shortly after that I got a call by a guy from TOT, announcing his visit for today.

This morning around 9:30 they came with three people. One of them spoke English fluently and gave a well-educated impression. He let me show and explain. Speed was 2.4 Mbit down and 0.7 Mbit up at that time. His diagnosis was the cable used in the underground line and inside the walls were of minor quality and/or damaged somewhere. He recommended a new cable laid overground and on the wall. I replied he would have to prove that working first. So they laid a cable from the street to my study. First that didn't work either. So one ran to the car to get a new modem, another called to TOT and the third checked the connections at the street. Just before the guy could connect the new modem I reconnected mine: Surprising 6.85 Mbit. The guy carried the modem back to the car. They wanted me to say OK to a new cable from the street to my modem. I asked for the costs; they couldn't tell, would come back next Tuesday and tell me then. They rolled in their cable and wanted me to say "OK, you can go now!" But I checked my internet for its performance: It wasn't working like before, it wasn't working anymore at all. All efforts to reconnect my old underground cable that had worked though slow ended in vain. So they laid out their cable again. After a few attempts to get it connected, and a few more calls to the technician to adjust the server they got it working with 5.99 Mbit again. Thanks to the adjustments on the server my upload speed is down to a maximum of 0.4 Mbit.

Asking about the costs I explained them that I had paid for the cable to my house already with the installation fee five years ago though the already laid underground cable I had paid for before has been used. They want to clear also, whether I have to pay for a new cable at all. We'll see how things turn out. Download is fair now, upload even less than before. I am convinced this was caused by their adjusting the server.

Today they came again with two. They opened the connecting and access points to my underground and wall cables, redid all the connections and measured, found everything ok, just not working as supposed. They then simply laid a new cable from the street to my house hanging through the air. Though hanging cables over my land was just what I wanted to avoid when I paid a fortune for the underground cables, there doesn't seem another way getting 6 Mbit speed on the internet. Maybe the cable bought ten years ago for the phone line really isn't suitable for ADSL, though it measured perfect on their meters. Now I still have to push through not getting billed for 9 Mbit (890 Baht + VAT) but only 590 Baht + VAT for 7Mbit.

The problem of getting only 2.5 to last 6 Mbit, while they continuously charged me for 9 Mbit, made my wife go to their office in Choho yesterday asking them to only charge for what they do actually deliver... I don't know yet what they'll be billing me next time, but my download speed is down to 4.5 Mbit since this morning. Upload is up at 0.55 Mbit. My wife says they reduced it to 400+ Baht a month. I think they changed it to the 390 Baht package now. That were 535 Baht incl VAT less than before, at just about 25% slower than before. That's ok!

I'm aware that this is Thailand! Still I can't be but stunned about their way of calculating. It took me half a year to make TOT understand that they're not delivering what they keep billing me. They tried to improve their service to some effect, but still couldn't supply what they kept billing. So finally one month ago I got my wife so angry about them that she went there and made them aware of their constant over-billing again, and flatly told them to either cut the line or reduce the price to what they actually can deliver. Then they agreed to cut the price. And upon the question about the newest bill now they explained that they can cut the price only from the moment on they were given the option of either cutting the line or adjusting the price. For the not billed-yet time when they already knew they can't deliver what they were billing I still have to pay the price for what they couldn't deliver.

So the two positions of the above bill are explained as split into two different rates, no matter that they couldn't deliver the first and kept over-billing me blatantly for more than half a year, during which we were always told by their hotline 1100 that they would change the rate, but then never did. Until finally one of the hotline operators lost her temper and told me to deal directly with the local office at Choho. Only those could fix that problem. I think I mentioned before that my wife didn't feel confident about being successful there either. Now we'll have to wait for what surprise the next bill might be bringing.

My advice to people not getting the speed they expect at TOT is, not to order a package they think might improve the speed, it might only raise their bill. Start with the smallest package, and when they actually deliver the speed you're paying for you might try a higher-speed package. But don't expect a higher speed package might actually increase the speed. That's only possible, when you already get the speed you pay for in the lower package, and if also technically there is room for an upgrade. If you agreed to an "upgrade" they can't deliver you gotta go through hell to get back to the way of billing before that.

My advice to people not getting the speed they expect at TOT is, not to order a package they think might improve the speed, it might only raise their bill. Start with the smallest package

Sounds like there in a bad way. I had an invoice on a bill 2 months ago of 400 bht calls we never made , on a visit to the office i was advised to pay the bill as we could not prove we never made them, but for 30 bht a month we could by a locking code that you used if you wanted to use the phone you put the number in first to make your call.

The man in the shop said dont loose the locking code or you will not be able to make any calls,As a joke i said i will leave it next to the phone,good idea he said.

sicho

We were paying the bill at the time so I asked for an hour's discount. The only response was the usual Thai giggle. I left smiling and took my revenge on some idiot motorcyclists - a blast on the horn to the wobbling fools, more interested in what's to their left or texting, gives amusing results.

Is it just me, who can hardly access the web with his TOT internet? Since a few days the resetting and extremely slow motion has reappeared. Calling 1100 usually is of not much use. they answer the problem is already known and fixed by their technicians at the moment. Maybe it works a few hours later again - for a few hours.

I'm already thinking about getting a SIM card from a good mobile services provider for a working second connection on my mobile phone, which I can also use for tethering (personal hotspot). The AIS One-2-call for internet is out of the question. They seem to have unlimited daily internet packages for EDGE (384kbps) only. Though those cost only 19 Baht, if I understood the computer on *138 correctly, my experiences with AIS have never been good. CAT used to supply fair internet on 2.5G, but had problems with billing and book keeping. Would not want to try that again. DTAC was fairly decent, but my experiences date back to EDGE only.

Which of the many providers now available might be suitable in pricing and reliability as a second line on the mobile?

My daughter uses an AIS sim card for her 3g connection on her samsung, she pays on a daily basis, when she wants to use it *777*33# 15 bht.24hrs. The money being deducted from her phone.I suppose it depends on your location for speed. But its AIS, Good enough for her FACEBOOK

Is it just me, who can hardly access the web with his TOT internet? Since a few days the resetting and extremely slow motion has reappeared. Calling 1100 usually is of not much use. they answer the problem is already known and fixed by their technicians at the moment. Maybe it works a few hours later again - for a few hours.

I'm already thinking about getting a SIM card from a good mobile services provider for a working second connection on my mobile phone, which I can also use for tethering (personal hotspot). The AIS One-2-call for internet is out of the question. They seem to have unlimited daily internet packages for EDGE (384kbps) only. Though those cost only 19 Baht, if I understood the computer on *138 correctly, my experiences with AIS have never been good. CAT used to supply fair internet on 2.5G, but had problems with billing and book keeping. Would not want to try that again. DTAC was fairly decent, but my experiences date back to EDGE only.

Which of the many providers now available might be suitable in pricing and reliability as a second line on the mobile?